History
Composed of comic-book professionals, the ACBA was one of a string of largely unsuccessful comics-industry organizations that includes the Comic Book Creators Guild (1978–1979), the Comic Book Professionals Association (CBPA, 1992–1994), and Comic Artists, Retailers and Publishers (CARP, 1998). The long-running exception was the publishers' group the Comic Magazine Association of America (CMAA), founded in 1954 and lasting through 2011, as a response to public pressure and a Senate subcommitte on juvenile delinquency, and which created the self-censorship board the Comics Code Authority.
Founded in 1970, the ACBA held its first annual awards banquet at the Statler Hilton Hotel's Terrace Ballroom on May 12, 1971.
Despite its roots as an honorary society, the ACBA, under its early president, artist Neal Adams, became an advocacy organization for creators' rights. The comic-book industry at that time did not return artists' physical artwork after shooting the requisite film for printing, and in some cases destroyed the artwork to prevent unauthorized reprints. The industry also did not then offer royalties or residuals, common in such creative fields as book publishing, film and television, and the recording industry. Once the ACBA — riding a wave begun by the mid-'70s independent startup Atlas/Seaboard Comics, which instituted royalties and the return of artwork in order to attract creators — helped see those immediate goals achieved, it then gradually disbanded.
Historian Jon B. Cooke wrote:
While the Academy of Comic Book Arts (ACBA) was established to be a kind of funnybook Motion Picture Academy — a self-congratulatory organization focused on banquets and awards — it quickly served as a soapbox for the Angry Young Men in the industry, primarily Neal Adams, Archie Goodwin, and their ilk of educated, informed and gutsy artists and writers, self-confident and filled with a strong sense of self-worth, attitudes sadly absent from the field for decades. ... (Jeff Rovin recalled, 'I can't tell you how many times Martin would listen to some of the things Neal Adams was saying and mutter, "Who the hell does he think he is?"').
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